# Alena Buyx

Alena Michaela Buyx (German pronunciation:; born 29 September 1977) is a German medical ethicist. She was the Chair of the German Ethics Council from 2020 until April 2024.

## Early life and education

Buyx studied medicine, philosophy and sociology at the University of Münster, the University of York and the University College London from 1997, and earned a PhD.

## Career

From 2009 to 2012 Buyx served as an associate director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She completed her habilitation in Münster in 2013. From 2012 to 2014 she headed the DFG-Emmy Noether group "Bioethics and Political Philosophy" at the University of Münster and was a senior research fellow in public policy at the University College London until 2015.
Buyx became professor of medical ethics at the University of Kiel in 2014. In 2016, she was appointed as a member of the German Ethics Council and became its president in 2020. In 2018, she became professor of ethics in medicine and health technologies at the Technical University of Munich. In 2020, she was elected as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

## Reception

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Buyx came under criticism for advocating measures such as the widespread 2G rule and a vaccination mandate without questioning them critically. Critics accused her of acting too close to the government and of not representing sufficiently independent positions. Furthermore, emails were published documenting her close exchange with the then Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn, in which she asked for instructions. This further fueled the debate about her independence. In one email, she wrote to Spahn: “To discuss your suggestions and any other questions that may arise in a personal conversation and to learn more precisely what wishes and ideas you have for our work.”

## Other activities

* Free University of Berlin, Member of the Board of Trustees
* Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Member of the Board of Trustees
* Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
* World Health Organization (WHO), Member of the Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing (2019–2021)

## Personal life

In April 2023, Buyx was one of the 22 personal guests at the ceremony in which former Chancellor Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.

## Selected publications

* A. Fiske, P. Henningsen, A. Buyx: Your robot therapist will see you now: Ethical implications of embodied artificial intelligence in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 21(5), 2019, S. e13216, doi:10.2196/13216.
* A. Sierawska, A. Buyx: Unmet Needs in Children with ADHD - Can tDCS Fill the Gap? Promises and Ethical Challenges. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2019. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00334.
* G. Richter, C. Borzikowsky, W. Lieb, S. Schreiber, M. Krawczak, A. Buyx: Patient views on research use of clinical data without consent: Legal, but also acceptable? European Journal of Human Genetics. 2019. doi:10.1038/s41431-019-0340-6.
* B. Prainsack, A. Buyx: The value of work and labour: Addressing the Future of Work (FOW) through the lens of solidarity. Bioethics. 32(9), 2018, pp. 585–592. doi:10.1111/bioe.12507.
* A. Fiske, A. Buyx, B. Prainsack: Health Information Counselors: A New Profession for the Age of Big Data? Academic Medicine. 2018. doi:10.1097/ACM.0000000000002395. PMID 30095453.
* G. Richter, M. Krawczak, W. Lieb, L. Wolff, S. Schreiber, A. Buyx: Broad consent for healthcare-embedded biobanking: understanding and reasons to donate in a large patient sample. Genetics in Medicine. 20(1), 2018, pp. 76–82. doi:10.1038/gim.2017.82. PMID 28640237.
* J. Littmann, A. Rid, A. Buyx: Tackling anti-microbial resistance. Ethical framework for rational antibiotic use. European Journal of Public Health. 28(2), 2018, pp. 359–363. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckx165.
* B. Prainsack, A. Buyx: Solidarity in biomedicine and beyond. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
* B. Prainsack, A. Buyx: Solidarity: Reflections on an emerging concept in bioethics. 2011.